Wellness Centre – Lack of Sleep

Lack of Sleep

Are you constantly letting sleep take a backseat in your health and wellness priorities? Do you find yourself unable to fall asleep or feeling your quality of sleep is suffering? You may not realize, but sleep is a critical part of your health and wellness, and poor sleep habits can be at the root of several health problems and overall compensated wellbeing.

The Impacts and Consequences of Poor Sleep

Whether poor quality, poor quantity, or poor consistency, whenever your sleep suffers, there are unintended consequences and impacts that come as a result. For many people, these impacts can be long term, and often come after an accumulation of poor sleep habits.

It is not unusual to have a poor sleep on occasion, or to have a night where it seems like you just keep waking up. But for those individuals who experience this on a continuous basis, there can be both short term and long term consequences, and the lack of sleep can affect day-to-day functioning in several ways.

Work and Productivity – Sacrificing sleep to get more done only further negatively impacts productivity. Recent studies showed certain sleep problems such as insomnia, decreased productivity by up to 58%.

Weight and Health Maintenance – Decreased ability to maintain blood sugar levels, as well as mis-regulation of the body’s ability to signal fullness mean overindulgence is increased.

Concentration and Focus – Compensated memory function, inability to concentrate, and even changes in physical brain composition have all been associated with poor sleep quality or inadequate sleep.

Mood and Disposition – More than just increased irritability, research shows that individuals who are sleep deprived report an increase in overall negative mood, including frustration, sadness and anger.

Problems Caused by Lack of Sleep

While many of us equate our cranky mood, lack of ability to concentrate, or afternoon fatigue, with a poor sleep the night before, the truth is, inadequate sleep goes further than this. In fact, the cumulative effects of poor sleep can have an impact on physical, mental and emotional health, as well as be the root cause of more serious pathologies.

Increased risk of diabetes – A lack of sleep impacts the body’s insulin response system; constantly elevated blood sugar levels are at the root of development of Diabetes.

Increased risk of heart disease – Inadequate sleep causes an increase in blood pressure as well as increased inflammation within the body. Furthermore, sleep is necessary to help facilitate natural cleansing within the body to remove toxins. Failure of all of these can accumulate to increase the risk of heart disease.

Mental health problems – New studies confirm that lack of sleep may contribute to mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression. Previously professionals thought mental health issues were only symptoms of poor sleep.

Decreased Immunity – Sleep is crucial for production of the cellular components of the immune system. Failure to have enough sleep means the immunity defenses are not functioning optimally.

Finally, because lack of sleep is perceived as a stress to the body, it also initiates the stress response. Causing increased levels of cortisol, and activating the sympathetic nervous system, when the body is chronically in a state of stress, it further exasperates things such as immune function, digestion, one’s ability to concentrate and focus and ultimately, can lead to the more serious issues of adrenal fatigue.

Getting More Sleep – the Natural Way

The solution seems simple: get more sleep. For some people, it is indeed just that simple and there are a few things you can do to help you get more high quality sleep.

Establish a night time routine, whereby you do the same thing every night in the lead up to your bed time. This tells the body it is time for sleep.

Decrease the temperature in your room by one or two degrees.

Remove all screens and technology from the room and refrain from using them in the hour before bed.

Use relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing or meditation, to calm the body and mind ahead of sleep.

Refrain from eating or drinking stimulants in the two hours before bed time.

For other people however, who can’t fall asleep, suffer from insomnia, or have other health conditions which negatively impact their ability to sleep, the idea of being able to just “get more sleep,” is but a dream (no pun intended!). Consuming all natural herbal infusions, such as those as part of the HHS, is a good place to start.